Nay sooth sayer the whole world is in the same box of shit. I can't imagine why you would think it wasn't.

As you pointed out Europeans have long been paying this much for gas. On a percentage basis their increases are much smaller than ours. The Euro is much stronger than the US dollar. We are paying 50% or more today than a year ago, the Europeans more like 20-30%, depending where. I have done the math and while they're in a box of shit they have relatively more cat liter, we have none.

_________________“I'm not a member of any organized party. I'm a Democrat.”-Will Rogers

Europeans drive shorter distances with smaller cars. The entire country of France is only about the size of Texas.

Americans will migrate to smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles and I think that is a good thing.

I believe that China and Israel are getting the oil from Iraq. I have not been there recently to confirm this.

Our attempt (successful for two days?) to oust Chavez did not endear us to him. Hence, no oil from Venezuela.

We have also fallen from the Iranian Christmas card list. So with three of the four largest suppliers not supplying, the market is extracting its pound of flesh.

This will not help the Bush legacy which is promising to be the worst ever.

_________________"If the people allow private banks to control their currency the banks and corporations will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." - Thomas Jefferson

We will pay much more for fuel, we are less prepared, Bush legacy shall be the ruination of America, the Euro will be the monetary denomination oil is purchased in, America will become the equivalent of a third world country, the first to move backwards, food will become exceptionally expensive, riots will develop in all urban centers, and that is enough for now.

TuT

_________________Look out kid, They keep it all hid.”
Bob Dylan “Subterranean Homesick Blues”

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. consumer confidence fell to a 28-year low in May, a survey showed on Friday, as soaring prices for food and fuel soured sentiment and pushed long-term inflation expectations to the highest in more than a decade.

The rising expectations conflicted with a government report showing price growth moderated last month. Together, the reports heighten the challenge facing the Federal Reserve, which wants to avoid inflation perceptions becoming reality.

The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers confidence index fell to 59.8 in May, the lowest since 58.7 in June 1980. Its gauge of five-year inflation expectations rose to 3.4 percent, the highest since April 1995.

"Consumers are running scared. These price data are bad for consumers and businesses," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's Ratings Services in New York.

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"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."Honore de Balzac

"Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it."~Harry S. Truman

THE market here isn’t like those of Florida or California, which have followed a boom-and-bust pattern, or of Cleveland, where foreclosures have overwhelmed entire neighborhoods. Instead, what’s playing out here is a kind of paralysis, with wide swaths of the market frozen and only the very top end showing signs of life.

This may hint at what’s in store for other real estate markets around the nation that managed to avoid the excesses of the last decade but still find themselves struggling now. Indeed, the recent economic trajectory of Greensboro, a city of 242,000 smack in the middle of the rolling Carolina Piedmont, has run parallel to that of the country as a whole.

Sales of existing homes here are down 22.5 percent from the first quarter of 2007, according to G. Donald Jud, a University of North Carolina economist who tracks the market for local Realtors, compared with a 21.7 percent drop in home sales nationally. Unemployment in the Greensboro area averaged 5.1 percent in April, versus 5 percent nationwide. The mortgage delinquency rate of 4.04 percent, meanwhile, is nearly identical to the country’s rate, 4.35 percent.

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"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."Honore de Balzac

"Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it."~Harry S. Truman

With down payment requirements of 20-25%, you have guaranteed partial paralysis of real estate markets.

_________________"If the people allow private banks to control their currency the banks and corporations will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." - Thomas Jefferson

All one has to do is listen to Mr. Potter's little speech in "It's A Wonderful Life" where the little people are "supposed" to rent from him for life and never have their own homes to see where some of this stems. Potter owning both the bank and the real estate made for the double whammy. The banks have always wanted to promote the idea they have no desire to own the houses and real estate, but this is where the real accumulation of wealth occurs. It's not called real estate for nothing.

_________________“I'm not a member of any organized party. I'm a Democrat.”-Will Rogers

so this mortgage problem is not lack of money...is just people not willing to pay more into over valued properties and bailing out? but high gas prices will have to effect inflation and make this worse.

High gas prices are really cutting into most people's budgets, but especially into those who bought huge homes, huge vehicles, including Hummers, and lots of other toys that have been so marketable.

The I, Me, My crowd are having to pay the piper now, and some of them simply can't do it. They didn't educate themselves before they jumped into those neat mortgage deals. This thread alone is an education within itself about such matters.

thebeach, as Catherine's links point out, it is not only the guys trying to keep up with the Jones' who cannot pay. Plenty of regular people who got ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages) are having great difficultry (these were usually lower income people). They were promised by the lenders that they would be able to refinance before the rate adjusted higher, then there was no refi available, they were screwed with payments double and triple the amounts of their original payments.

There are also the get rich quickers who thought that they could do that neat little scam of flipping houses and are now stuck with several ARMs on expensive houses they never expected to keep but a few months at the most. These people I don't feel very sorry for. Have you ever seen the stupid "flip this house" shows on TLC or whatever? Its like the whole scam is to buy a turn and then polish it up and make it "purty" and then see who will pay the most for the turd. The haughty toddy attitude of the flippers really got under my skin!

Anyway, while some may still have the money available to pay the mortgages but don't want to, I am pretty sure the vast majority fall into the don't have enough money to pay them crowd.

Here in my teeny tiny Mississippi town, we're still in the middle of an amazingly huge real estate bubble because there is a major university located here. Developers salivate over the kids coming to town loaded down with their parents credit cards and condos, apartments and these little shotgun houses are popping up like weeds. The rents are outrageous. What goes for $400 bucks rent a month 20 miles from here is rented for at least $1000 here. And houses sell for about 3 -4 times their actual worth. I am scared to see the ghost town its going to create when people quit paying these prices and make their kids stay in the dorms. It makes it very difficult to be an average Jane and live all right in this town.

Blah, blah. As usual I have said too much!

_________________You can sing the praises of women all day long, but as long as you put a fertilized egg ahead of [their] welfare, you do not really care about them.-Dori 4/07

[url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12400801/]Price of oil jumps as U.S. dollar declinesAt the pump, meanwhile, gas prices rise to a new record near $3.99[/url]

NEW YORK - Oil prices rose back above $128 a barrel Thursday after the dollar fell in response to comments by European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet suggesting the bank could raise interest rates. At the pump, meanwhile, gas prices rose to a new record near $3.99, and are likely to hit $4 soon.

Light, sweet crude for July delivery rose as high as $128.26 before retreating slightly to settle up $5.49 at $127.79 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, easily regaining all ground lost earlier in the week.

Trichet spoke after the ECB left a key interest rate unchanged amid concerns about inflation. While Trichet said a change in rates was not a certainty, he said some of the bank’s governors favor an increase.

Gas in my area is already over $4.00 a gallon. If you want to trade in your SUV, you aren't going to get much for it as the dealers can't sell them. I passed by one of our largest car dealerships. Sitting in their used car lot were several Hummers, numerous large, king-cab trucks, and a few Expeditions.

_________________

"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."Honore de Balzac

"Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it."~Harry S. Truman

During an economic speech today, President Bush partly blamed a dramatic rise in unemployment on new workers entering the workforce. Later, in a CNN interview, Bush Labor Secretary Elaine Chao also said that the increase the unemployment rate was "caused in part by a surge of young entrants into the job market."

CNN senior business correspondent Ali Velshi weighed in that Bush administration excuses for the poor economy were "ridiculous." Velshi explained, "I just wish they wouldn't say that. President Bush said something earlier about how the unemployment rate today -- the increase -- was because a whole bunch of teenagers have joined the workforce, that's the point. 100,000 people join the working age working force every month. If we don't create 100,000 jobs every month, we're not doing the right thing."

Video is from CNN's Newsroom, broadcast June 6, 2008.

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"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."Honore de Balzac

"Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it."~Harry S. Truman